


Green and Growing Things

by zephsomething



Series: Surviving the War [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 10:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephsomething/pseuds/zephsomething
Summary: Professor Sprout retires, Neville gets a promotion, and McGonagall gets ideas.





	Green and Growing Things

**Author's Note:**

> A small reminder that this series is intended to be read in order, I made it a series because to do otherwise would put far to many tags on one fic.

“Retiring?” Neville repeated the word as he stared at Professor Sprout. Somehow it had never occurred to him that she would, the part of his mind that had processed that he was being offered the job wondered if one day kids would think he would never retire.

“Thought I’d stay here forever did you?” She patted his shoulder and looked around. “For a while there so did I, all things change in time though.”

“Yeah, yeah okay.”  He nodded and started to grin. “Professor of Herbology, that I can do.”

“And do well.” Sprout agreed with a small smile. “I’d best go tell Minerva the good news, you’ll have to talk to her about an office I’m afraid. Mine will no doubt sink back into the ground once it accepts that I’m leaving.”

After that the end of the school year rushed closer with a determined sort of speed, then a week before classes ended professor McGonagall sent a note asking him to come to her office; the password was stinksap which he found highly amusing. When he got up the winding staircase and through the doors he found Helen Brown there as well. She was the muggle studies teacher and head of Gryffindor house. She was also currently speaking.

“I’m quite sure McGonagall, I never wanted to be head of house.” She was shaking her head. “I like teaching but the rest of it is always a bit more than I want to be in charge of.”

“Hello.” He stepped properly into the room and looked between the two of them with a small frown.

“Thank you for joining us Neville, Helen here was just telling me how she wishes to step down from her position.” McGonagall nodded towards Helen with one eyebrow slightly raised.

“You know full well I only took it because I was the only Gryffindor professor.” She huffed and crossed her arms. Neville bit back a laugh as he thought about one of the first year girls who had just that look when he scolded her.

“This will of course leave you as head of Gryffindor house Neville, if you are willing to take it.” Now she’d turned that raised eyebrow on his and Neville felt the back of his neck heat up.

“Head of house?” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “But I wasn’t prefect or headboy or anything.”

“Well yours was an exceptional sort of school experience.” She said and Neville would swear for a moment her eyes twinkled which didn’t seem real because this was McGonagall her eyes didn’t twinkle. “We can hardly hold that against you can we?”

“Suppose not.” His shrug made Helen roll her eyes but McGonagall just nodded. “Yeah, I mean if Professor Brown doesn’t want it anymore, I can give it a go.”

“I think you’ll do well.” McGonagall smiled and nodded again, decisively this time. “I was here your last few years too remember.”

“Yes ma’am.” He nodded as well, but he didn’t bother to attempt a smile. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to think about those years and smile.

“Good good, now off you two go. Discuss your students.” She looked down at her desk and it was clear that she was done with them now.

It didn’t take Neville long to get all the few notes Helen Brown had on the students moved from her office to his. As he was going through them that evening and comparing them to his own lists and notes he’d been taking for years now he found himself frowning. She had very little there, all of it efficient and exactly as much as was needed, but nothing extra. He looked at his own lists again and his frown deepened. Of course, a small part of his mind reminded him, she didn’t start writing these lists in a war.

The knock on his door snapped his mind off of that dangerous route and he grinned when he saw Hannah there.

“I heard congratulations were in order.” She grinned. “I figured I should inform you that there will be a party in your honour this weekend, here in the great hall. McGonagall already agreed.”

“Bizarre right?” He stacked the papers more or less together and stood up. “Head of house as well as herbology professor.”

“We going somewhere?” She raised an eyebrow as he walked towards her.

“Yeah, I’ve got some ideas and need someone who knows about plants.” The path to the greenhouses was one they both knew well. “Every time I ask Sprout she just laughs and tells me to find my own way to do things.”

“She’s not wrong.”

Neville rolled his eyes and walked into the first greenhouse, the one with the least deadly plants. He gestured at the wall that faced the forest. “So I’m thinking of putting some trees here, just regular sort of ones you know? It could be a project for the first years, the kind of plants that grow big and leafy and block off the forest?”

“It’s the only greenhouse where that wall isn’t covered.” She agreed as she walked around the place, she hadn’t been there in years but it felt almost unchanged. Still filled with green and growing things, this place where she’d learned that life was something you had to grow, had to grow into. She nodded along as Neville walked her through his ideas, his changes and lesson plans. He would grow into this, had been growing into this for years now. He gestured, careful and precise and she felt her smile come easier.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my writing and want to buy me a coffee for it there's a ko-fi link in my profile.


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